On Media

Snowden says he is victim of illegal U.S. persecution

By DYLAN BYERS

07/01/2013 05:56 PM EDT

Former security contractor Edward Snowden has written a letter to Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa in which he argues that he has been illegally persecuted by the United States for exposing the National Security Agency's surveillance program, according to a new report from Reuters.

"I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest," Snowden wrote in Spanish, according to Reuters. "No matter how many more days my life contains, I remain dedicated to the fight for justice in this unequal world. If any of those days ahead realize a contribution to the common good, the world will have the principles of Ecuador to thank."

"While the public has cried out support of my shining a light on this secret system of injustice, the Government of the United States of America responded with an extrajudicial man-hunt costing me my family, my freedom to travel, and my right to live peacefully without fear of illegal aggression," he wrote.

This is Snowden's first statement since arriving at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport eight days ago. He is believed to have been in the airport's transit zone, legally separate from Russian soil, since his arrival.

Snowden has reportedly applied for politial asylum in Russia, though on Monday President Vladimir Putin said the former contractor would not be granted asylum unless he stopped publishing classified documents, according to a report in The New York Times.

UPDATE (6:08 p.m.): Snowden released the following statement, via WikiLeaks, shortly after Reuters report was published:

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America have been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.